THE DIAGNOSIS OF RENAL INSUFFICIENCY FROM THE FREEZING—POINT OF THE BLOOD.

Clinicians have learned not to depend too implicitly upon the presence or absence of albumin or tube-casts, or both, in the diagnosis of disease of the kidney, but to be governed in arriving at a conclusion by the tout ensemble of the individual case. The diagnosis of nephritis may, therefore, be ventured at times when some of the characteristic urinary phenomena are wanting; but with or without these it is often more important to know how well the kidneys are performing their function. This cannot be more than approximately determined by estimation of the nitrogen elimination, and a simple method of gaining the desired information would serve a most useful purpose. This, Koranyi (Berliner klin. Woch., 1899, No. 5, p. 97) thinks, can be learned from a study of the freezing-point of the blood. As the result of numerous careful experiments and extended clinical observation with relation to the osmotic